Nonwoven fabrics are used in a very wide variety of applications where the engineered qualities of the fabric can be advantageously employed. These type of fabrics differ from traditional woven or knitted fabrics in that the fibers or filaments of the fabric are integrated into a coherent web without traditional textile processes. Entanglement of the fibers or filaments of the fabric provide the fabric with the desired integrity, with the application of binder compositions and the like being well-known for further enhancing the integrity of the structure.
Various parameters impact the physical characteristics of the nonwoven fabric, including fiber composition and size, fiber orientation, fiber entanglement, and integration of the fibers such as by application of binders or thermal bonding. Variations in these parameters permit fabrics to be engineered for specific applications, thus enhancing the cost-effectiveness of such materials.
While fabrics of this nature have found wide-spread applicability, the nature of the processes by which they are typically formed can limit the uses for which particular fabrics are suited. Ordinarily, fabrics are manufactured so as to exhibit a "machine direction" (MD), extending along the length of the fabric in the direction in which it is manufactured, and a "cross-direction" (CD) extending perpendicularly to the machine direction. While fabrics can be engineered to exhibit certain properties, these fabrics ordinarily do not exhibit a relatively high degree of recovery, after extension, in the cross-direction.